Sketchy experiences

This Wednesday marked one month in Russia for me! Despite all the warnings about how dangerous Russia is, I've really had very little trouble and only a handful of times I've actually felt threatened, besides everyday dangers like crossing streets filled with maniac drivers, which also gets the adrenaline pumping! Here are a few of my sketchier experiences:

On my first day here I had the misfortune to run into the gypsies. Near the Winter Palace, dressed in brightly coloured traditional dress and wearing all sorts of garish jewellry, a quartet of stereotypical gypsy women descended on poor old foreign me! I tried my best to break free of the closing ring of incomprehensible Russian pleas and flashing golden teeth, muttering nyet, nyet, nyet at them but they were oh so insistent. The craziest-looking one followed me for nearly half a block, schrieking "Mushchina, Mushchina!" at me before she finally gave up on me and I checked to make sure my wallet was still with me. Survived my first gypsy ordeal intact, thank goodness.

Sandra and I were on the Metro on our way to go see a Museum the second week I was here. Standing by the door was a man mabye in his 60s with a briefcase and nearby a couple of bulky-looking thugs in black leather jackets. When we arrived at the next station the roughs started to scuffle, pushing each other around and getting angry before one suddenly took off through the open door and ran towards the escalator, his accomplice close behind. I was trying to figure out what had just happened when the older man who had been standing nearby yelled, "Damnit, my wallet's gone!" in English and started cursing and looking desperately around on the floor of the car for it. I'm sure what happened was that these guys realized he was a foreigner, mabye heard him talk in English, and someone picked his pocket while he was distracted by the two guys "fighting." We both checked afterwards to make sure we hadn't been unwittingly robbed as well and decided to be extra careful on the Metro since then!

Probably one of the scariest experiences I've had here was my brief encounter with the Russian medical system. All foreign students at Saint Petersburg State University have to have an HIV test upon arrival at the university's very own clinic, cunningly hidden in a small building around the back of the giant OTTO Institute so that the poor foreigners get completely lost! Finally I found it and walked in, my spirits sinking quickly. It wasn't actually visibly dirty in there or anything, but in comparison to medical facilities in Canada it was pretty scary. Everything looked old and well-worn; poorly-lit rooms, tired linoleum, and walls painted in that old-fashioned institutional pale green. And the staff were so brusque and unfriendly, even rude - you'd think for a clinic that deals with so many foreign students they might bother hiring someone who speaks something other then Russian, but no! I really don't do well with needles anyways, but here I felt positively terrified as I sat waiting my turn, all the stories and rumours I'd heard of the grim state of the Russian medical system, improper sterilization, and reused needles coming back to me! I survived and got the required certificate but oh that experience instilled in me a deep dread of the bolnitsa, or Russian hospital. I will do my very best to avoid them at all costs!